A group claiming to represent almost 4m British women born in the 1950s has begun a court battle to try to prove that the government discriminated against them by raising their state pension age by as much as six years. Michael Mansfield QC, representing two unnamed members of BackTo60, told a judicial review against the Department for Work and Pensions at the High Court in London that the raised state pension age for women had been a \u201cblight\u201d on those born in the 1950s who had already suffered workplace discrimination and pay inequality. He said 3.8m women were in the same position as that of his clients. Women\u2019s state pension age has been raised gradually from 60 since 2010, and they now receive the benefit at 65, in line with men. The entitlement age for both will rise to 66 from next year. The government has said the changes were designed to equalise the state pension entitlements between men and women. Mr Mansfield said that \u201cin fact what has happened is the reverse\u201d. BackTo60 argues that because the pay for British women born in the 1950s was often lower than that for men, and because many of these women took time out of the workplace to care for children, not receiving their state pension at 60 has had a disproportionately harsh effect on them. \u201cThey were encouraged to stay at home\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009the employer would tell them \u2018if you get married, leave\u2019,\u201d said Mr Mansfield. This restricted the women\u2019s ability to save into occupational retirement schemes and made them more reliant on the state payout. The lawyer said the flipside of such \u201chistorical factors and social expectations\u201d was women being allowed to claim their state pensions earlier than men. Raising the age at which they could claim the pension meant the government had taken away \u201ca far bigger proportion of their income than it [would be] for men\u201d, he said. But James Eadie QC, representing the DWP, said the changes had equalised the state pension age between men and women to ensure \u201cintergenerational fairness\u201d between pensioners and the younger taxpayers funding them. He said the raising of women\u2019s pension age had also occurred \u201cto control government expenditure at a time of great pressure on public finances\u201d, following the global financial crisis. Mr Mansfield argued that if the aim was to reduce government spending, the cost of such savings should not be \u201con the shoulders\u201d of what he called the \u201cbridgehead\u201d generation of women born in the 1950s, but \u201cborne in a non-discriminatory way\u201d between all generations. Sir James said the government had taken \u201cextensive steps\u201d to notify affected women of changes to their state pension age that would help them plan for their retirement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
BackTo60 and Women Against State Pension Inequality, a related campaign group, have long argued that women born in the 1950s were not given adequate notice. WASPI claims many did not receive a personalised communication about their raised state pension age until between 2009 and 2013, when it was too late for them to save enough money to make up for the lost retirement income.\n\nSpeaking outside the court, Jean Getty, a 64-year-old Northern Irish health sector worker, said that because she will retire at 66 instead of 60, the age increase would cost her more than \u00a340,000, based on average state pension payments to women.\n\n\u201cThe government have said they wrote to us 15 years ago to tell us our state pension age would be moved to 65 or 66, which they didn\u2019t do, which was maladministration,\u201d she said.\n\nMs Getty added she had expected to start receiving her state pension at 60 and had looked forward to \u201cgiving up my work, working on and receiving that money into my bank, or reducing my hours.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut they didn\u2019t give us enough notice so we did not plan for it.\u201d\n\n<\/p>\n